Tundra birds

We saw many tundra birds and many over and over.  We were in and out of the vans all day long.  Many of the birds we saw in the tundra landscape were birds not necessarily expected.  The photos below represent some of the expected.  

  

Long-tailed Skua (Jaeger) (Stercorarius longicaudus).  We saw this bird many times here and elsewhere.  We also saw Arctic Skua (Parasitic) (Stercorarius parasiticus) here.  

Long-tailed Duck (Clangula hyemalis). 

We saw many Long-tailed Ducks, often in larger numbers, and I was hoping to hear them as described by Barry Lopez in his book Arctic Dreams*.  He wrote: " ... the haunting sound of oldsquaw in the ice, ahaalik, ahaalik ... " (page 404).   I remember reading this and going immediately to Merlin to see if this sound was in that app.  It was, and accurately described by Barry Lopez.  In the van we briefly mentioned the duck's pejorative nickname oldsquaw and I offered the Eskimo origins for this name that I had learned when reading Arctic Dreams.  However, I did also find on-line a Chicago Ornithological Society column titled Dan's Feathursday Feature: Oldsquaw? which offers a good and thorough, but different, explanation of the origin of oldsquaw, blaming it instead on white people rather than Arctic native people.  I don't know which is correct, but I do know that Barry Lopez's book was meticulously researched.  Arctic Dreams was also published at a time, 1986, when political correctness was just beginning to make its cultural appearance.  I highly recommend Arctic Dreams for the beauty of Lopez's (now deceased) writing, and for his description of how the Arctic really looked and was before climate change was being widely discussed and acknowledged; that is, there was still ice and all of the life that the ice once supported.     

Eurasian Teal (Anas crecca)

Above and below:  Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus)

Temminck's Stint (Calidris temminckii)

Reindeer way out on the tundra.

Above and eight below:  Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) for a good look.

Whooper Swans (Cygnus Cygnus) were seen daily and there were five in this tundra location.  That's snow melt they're swimming in. 

Of note:  Even though it is a European bird, we saw only two Mute Swans (C. olor) on the whole trip.  While not tundra birds, just to also mention, curiously we did not see many House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) either, and we did not see even a single Starling (Sturnus vulgaris).  We weren't looking for Starlings, of course, but when they are around you can't miss them.

*Arctic Dreama, Copyright © 1986 Barry Holstun Lopez.  First Vintage Books Edition, October 2001.